Police: Mentally ill man burned down own home for 3rd time

Updated 6:46 pm, Tuesday, March 29, 2016

A Bellevue man has been detained on $1 million bail after admitting he burned his house to the ground Monday, according to police reports.

The 53-year-old man, who has a history of schizophrenia, has set fire to two other homes of his since 1996. He has a previous conviction for first-degree arson and was found not guilty due to insanity in the other case, court records say.

He's not yet been charged in this week's incident.

The man called 911 himself after pouring gasoline on his bedroom TV and lighting paper towels to ignite the gas, according to the probable cause reports.

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He reportedly told a 911 call-taker about 3:40 pm. Monday that he lit his house on fire in the 16000 block of Southeast Fourth Street because he thought he was being followed.

Police arrived along with firefighters to find flames shooting from the back of the house and windows breaking from the intense heat, according to the probable cause.

The 53-year-old resident, who lived with his wife, adult daughter and a downstairs tenant, calmly told police he lit the house on fire and that no one else was inside, reports say.

The blaze drew a "large scale" fire response and burned the house to the studs in the walls in some parts, according to police accounts. The home is considered a total loss.

The man told Bellevue police that he had suffered a schizophrenia relapse and that he had not been sleeping or eating well since his state disability benefits stopped recently. He experienced racing thoughts, paranoia that someone was following him and an elevated heart rate, he told authorities.

He was smoking on his back porch Monday when he spotted a gas can outside his neighbor's house and "it was like a sign," he told cops.

He claimed to have retrieved a different gas can from his garage, emptied the contents on the TV in his bedroom and went to his kitchen to grab paper towels. He lit two paper towels on fire, threw them onto the gasoline and calmly walked away, according to probable cause reports. The man said he saw three-foot-high flames as he left the room.

His daughter told police her father seemed normal that morning.

He told detectives he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1996, the year he set his home on fire the first time. The case resulted in years of custody at Western State Hospital, he told police. He set another home on fire in 2004.

Monday, he said he burned his Bellevue home "to stop the racing thoughts and his racing heartbeat" and that the fire was "his release," police reports say.

However, he added that he felt he needs to face consequences for his actions.

A King County Superior Court judge set his bail at $1 million. Court records indicate his wife and daughter were "scared for him to be released."